13 Dollars for an electronic switch ?? (was: 4066's. Eat em up, Yum)

[The Dark force of dance]

Y-ellow Paul 'n' all.

At 07:55 AM 8/13/97 -0000, Paul Schreiber wrote:
>I don't understand the adversity towards a good old relay. Most people view
relays in the same bucket as inductors
>and vaccuum tubes, but with "today's technology", you can get DPDT or 4PDT
relays the size of 18 pin DIPS that
>use gold over palladium contacts, can be driven DIRECTLY from HC logic, and
cost about $3.00. See the offerings
>from Omron, Aromat, and NEC. Oh, and 0.025 ohms max on resistance, -120dB
SNR, 35 volts pk-pk signals.

For this app I seriously considered relays. I totally agree. But there's one
factor, at least where I live, that seriously undermines their use. Once
again it's our old enemy, "Cost". A suitable relay, DPDT, can cost from
about 8 bucks 'n' up. Most of the little PCB relays are SPDT. Even cheaper
are some of the reed relays. But they are SPST. And if I figure rightly they
have a few other minor problems to do with the electromagnetic properties of
the coils.

Brushing that asside though, relays are the ideal technology in this case.
For all of the above reasons. If I had 32 or more of identical relays which
I could fire off at between 5 and 18 volts or so, I'd be most inclined to
use them. Assuming they're small enough of course. In fact it was my first
choice. But the lack of enough, even similar suitable relays led me to the
inevitable question. "Why not use 4066s?" And just for the record, this
whole mixer I'm hoping to get happening doesn't necessarily need automated
or logic controlled switching. It's just that the object of the exercise is
to make it only take up 1 rack space and to pack as much into that rack
space as possible. I'm looking at 10 stereo channels. (or more) The problem
becomes then that there isn't enough room on the front panel for 40
mechanical switches. There isn't even enough room for pots. I'll have to put
them inside the box and design it so that I can slide it out to adjust them.
Which given the fixed nature of this mixer is probably a good idea anyway. I
need to be able to trim the levels but not bump them out of alignment.

But anyway yea. Relays are good!

Be absolutely Icebox.
 _ __        _                              
| "_ \      | |         batzman at dove.mtx.net.au / aek at gist.net.au
| |_)/  __ _| |_ ____           ALL ELECTRIC KITCHEN               
|  _ \ / _` | __|___ |  The new AEK CD, Elementary Urban sanity    
| |_) | (_| | |_  / /   is out now on Transmission Communications from
|_,__/ \__,_|\__|/ /    http://brisbane.dialix.com.au:80/~com11
                / ,__   and check out http://www2.gist.net.au/~aek/
Goodfortune    |_____|       Get your SANITY and wear it out.